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During a routine check around a waterfront condo on South Beach, a security guard on Sunday found the unexpected: A dead goat and some roosters, all headless. NBC 6 reporter Donna Rapado interviews Karim Mora, a security guard, and Richard Couto, an animal activist and investigator. (Published Sunday, Jan. 6, 2013)

During a routine check around a waterfront condo on South Beach, a security guard on Sunday found the unexpected: A dead goat and some roosters, all headless.

"I was looking in the water, and I see this blue bag and it looked like a leg of a goat coming out and some feathers,” said Karim Mora, the guard. “So right there, I knew what it was."

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The animals’ bodies were found floating near luxury condos on one side of the waterway, and celebrity-filled star island just across the way.

Whether the dead animals had anything to do with Santeria, the religion that at times includes animal sacrifices, was unclear.

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But Richard Couto, an animal activist and investigator with Animal Recovery Mission, a nonprofit, said he suspected the animals were religious sacrifices and said he sees it all the time across South Florida.

The location this time was especially surprising, said Couto, who responded immediately to where the animals’ bodies were found Sunday.

"We are getting more calls of animals getting sacrificed in Miami Beach,” Couto said. “But I have never found them in the middle of South Beach, just blocks from Ocean Drive.”

He said it shows this goes on everywhere in this community, regardless of whether it’s in a low- or high-income neighborhood.

The U.S. Constitution protects the humane killing of animals in religious ceremonies.

But Couto said in some cases, the animals are unimaginably tortured.

"They are being hog-tied, bagged, at times placed in hot trunks for transport,” he said. “They are thrown in garages for days upon days until the ceremony takes place without food, without water. Imagine the fear that went into this animal.”